The Power of Choice

Unemployment is at a 14-year high, and here come the holidays. Get ready to stretch your money to buy gifts and field questions from relatives about why you aren't employed yet and what you plan to do about it. But before you start getting stressed, remember: what you think is what you create.

Everything is always in a state of flux, constantly changing into new forms - depending on the force of whatever causal elements are focused on them. All objects are made up of atoms, which have energy, and are constantly moving. Atoms, manifested, become substance. Substance is held in place by the power of your attention until - or unless - you create a new thought or desire.

Be careful where you focus your mental and emotional attention. This is a conscious choice, which is why you must know what you specifically want in your job. Know what it must be composed of and what it looks like. Then, focus your desire on achieving it. We are in complete control of the quality of our experience and, to a large extent, the characteristics of it.

Your situation is what it is. If you don't like it, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. You have the power to make that choice. Happiness breeds happiness, sorrow breeds sorrow, and conflict breeds more conflict.

This holiday season, you can stress out, whine, think about how little money you have, how everyone else is employed and how unlucky you are, or you can think about something else - like how much you have instead of how much you don't have. No matter what's going on with you, someone else always has it worse, but we all have a choice in our reactions to circumstances.

Some fully employed people hate their job and wish that they were unemployed. But what if they were to look on the bright side? A regular paycheck while job-hunting is nice to have, isn't it? Those who are unemployed and worried about money need to remember that they have no restrictions on their time - they can job hunt full-time and get errands done during non-peak hours. Take whatever you don't like, and choose to find the good in it.

Express gratitude for the smallest thing and express it often. If you think negative thoughts, negative things will happen to you. If you think thankful and positive thoughts, you'll find little windows of blessings opening all over. Try it sometime.

That's not to say that life doesn't get hard. Be thankful for that, too. In times of crisis, we learn who we are. We have the ability to choose who we want to be in response to the crazy things that are happening to us. Make a conscious choice to start looking at problems as opportunities.

Instead of thinking, "Why don't I have a job yet?" think: "Hey, great! I've got an interview!" And, rather than saying, "I can't believe they didn't hire me!" say: "It's probably a blessing that I didn't get the job, anyway. I know the right one is waiting for me!"

Here's an exercise for everyone - employed or unemployed, happy or unhappy. Pay attention to your speech and your thoughts. Stay conscious in the moment, and see how many times you think or say something negative. When you catch yourself, turn it into a positive.

Every hour, actively look for things around you for which you can be grateful. Just before you fall asleep at night, name five things that happened to you that day for which you are thankful. These don't have to relate to your career. Notice what you take for granted: your car starting, owning a house when foreclosures are up, having food to eat, having friends who care, having a place to sleep, having clothes to wear, and just being able to breathe.

Recent studies show that people who are grateful, experience less stress and depression. They?re less materialistic, more spiritually connected, and they heal from loss or trauma sooner. This holiday season, what do you have to be grateful for? When the season is over, keep the gratefulness going.

Judi Perkins is the How-To Career Coach and was a recruiter for 22 years. She worked with hundreds of hiring authorities, set up/followed up on over 15,000 interviews, and consistently broke sales records by building relationships with clients and paying attention to details. Her insight into the hiring authority's mind has led to many of her clients finding jobs within 8 to 12 weeks because her focus and orientation is considerably different from that of other coaches. She's been on PBS's Frontline, SmartMoney magazine, CareerBuilder, MSN Careers, Hot Jobs, the New York Times, New York Daily News, and featured as an expert in numerous career books.